Community Development gets a lot of different definitions, the blog title gives you mine. Together with my family, living in central Asia, I work with a NGO in a CD project that works toward objectives of improving water, sanitation, hygiene, infant and maternal health, and agriculture for poor communities. I am not an expert in any of these fields, I'm the guy that trains and supports the national leaders and facilitators of the project, and makes sure that we are actually facilitating change

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

1 in a million

Previously on Facebook I mentioned a man who relentlessly pursued his vision
of bringing hydroelectricity to his homeland. I got to spend Sunday with
this guy, which inspired me to write a top-10 list:

10. He woke me at up at 3:30am, "Mr. Andy, get on the
motorcycle and take me up the valley to work on a project that called late last
night."I immediately
regretted calling the man relentless!

9. While we bounced along the road on a motorcycle that should
have been scrapped 10,000 miles ago, he told me stories the whole time, which
helped me relax and let the bike and the road find their own way to get along.

8. One of said stories was about the government 20 years ago
doing "flood relief" by dropping bombs from planes onto logjams that
were holding in the floodwater.

7. When we had a sudden session of side-to-side sand drifting, he
threw up his hands and begged God for mercy (and we didn't wipe out).

6. It took him only an hour to fix the hydro turbine, because he
knows his stuff.

5. After 6 hours of getting beat up on some of the craziest roads
I've ever ridden, he was still happily telling stories, like how he was the
best donkey-shoeing man in the district back in the day.

4. Baked by the sun and covered in fine dust, what was the first
thing he did after getting back to our room? Sit down and play a local
instrument of course (click video below).

3. While in Tajikistan he caught the young guys on our team
starring at the local women, and smacked them and told them if their jaw hung
any lower a bird would fly in.

2. Throughout the day he was a great help: he directed me to and
gave me great introduction to village elders, police commanders and governors,
allowing me to easily get into conversation with them, collect data for an
upcoming proposal, and exchange facebook IDs with them.

1. Before this trip, I already knew this guy was quality, because
in the spring when there was a bad fallout in one of our staff teams, the
entire project would have gone down the drain, except that he withstood
tremendous pressure to ally with some corrupt workers, and instead held up
truth, integrity, and genuine service to poor communities here.

One thing that always makes me happy to be here: Spending time
with 1-in-a-million characters like this guy.